


The Myth of Planar Space

by primeideal



Category: Chess (Board Game)
Genre: F/F, IN SPACE!, Yuletide 2017, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 10:50:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12982473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/primeideal/pseuds/primeideal
Summary: The war fleet tries to simplify things sometimes. Whoever has the strongest army wins, space is flat, their Commander is more than human.Reality is more complicated.





	The Myth of Planar Space

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Malkontent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Malkontent/gifts).



> Thanks to robberbaroness for betaing.

_Move forward_ , blipped the message over the computer screen. _Back up that exploratory drone._

Gabriela analyzed it, then called up an ORBAT. Signalling Kalina, she asked, “What drone?”

The archivist responded quickly. “My deputy, I assume, already deployed. Who else?”

“That’s what I figured,” Gabriela relayed back. “Thanks.”

It was a rare feat to get a useful message out of Kalina. Half the time the woman’s head seemed to be drifting in some distant nebula, collating creeds and cultural relics of the past. What she was doing opposing the Melitts in a war zone—what Command had figured recruiting her, instead of keeping her on the colony ship with helpless civilians—was beyond Gabriela’s knowledge. But Kalina’s flights of fancy were none of her business. What was her business was figuring out what the commander wanted her to do in support. Defensive maneuvers were all well and good, but piloting a gravicraft defied the simple projections of planar space.

Could she, dare she, second-guess the Commander? It was still so early in the hostilities, but then again...if Jadwiga was unfamiliar with how gravicrafts operated, all the better to speak up as soon as possible.

Gabriela hastily sent a query to the command ship, and buckled in for whatever sleep she could muster aboard the gravicraft. She did not expect to be roused by an incoming hail, but hurriedly answered it while considering worst-case scenarios. Was her ship malfunctioning? Had her local drone imploded? Had the Melitts breached their defenses with unforeseen speed?

But it was Commander Jadwiga herself, fielding her question in person. “You must be Gabriela?”

“Yes,” Gabriela admitted, “sorry about the mess...”

“Desynchronized fleets will do that,” said Jadwiga, “we should be so fortunate as to have enough ships to get our clocks off.”

That was the Commander? Cracking wise about the size of her army, all with a straight face? “You got my message? I’m happy to push forward, but I can’t defend the drone from there.”

“Of course,” said Jadwiga, and she somehow made it sound sober rather than dismissive. “I’ve studied gravicraft flight schematics in the academy. If I may be blunt, the Melitts are still distant. My—our priority, it seems, should be getting our nimblest ships out onto the front lines.”

Gabriela couldn’t help but push back. “‘Front’ is a misnomer in space. It’s hardly flat, the entire rationale of the gravicraft is to intercept where bulkier fighters can’t turn as quickly—” She cut herself off. What was she doing, talking back to the Commander?

“Will you accept nearer to and farther from the enemy?” Jadwiga asked, almost playfully.

“Yes. Of course.”

“Very well. No doubt I may need to call upon you in the future.”

“I’ll try to be presentable.”

“Get some rest,” said Jadwiga. “We’ll all need it. And, Gabriela?”

“Yes? Uh, Commander?”

“Feel free to offer your suggestions. The time may come when I’m replaced by an upgraded drone, and it would be to our advantage if they could learn from an experienced tactician.”

Gabriela blinked. Sure, the rumors said that if a drone could plunge deep into Melitt territory, it could find some rare engine parts that would let it pivot with the flexibility of a command ship. But the plainspoken way Jadwiga regarded her potential annihilation was unnerving. “I’d hope that’s what these computer links are for,” said Gabriela, with more nonchalance than she felt.

“Well you might,” said Jadwiga. “Fortune go with you.”

Shutting down the link, Gabriela prepared for the transit forward. The ship’s computer—top-of-the-line by human fleet standards, even if its engine had less range than most—began calculating which planets in her vicinity would be close enough to slingshot around, allowing her to clear the nearest drones as well as Kalina and keep out of their way. After the computation had finished processing, she did a quick eyeball check and set course for a small, rocky world.

A few lurches around its orbit, and she was flung past the plane of the fleet, slowly braking as she realigned with them closer to the first human drone that had ventured forward. Finally, she paused to gnaw on some tasteless space rations. Generations of space flight, years of interstellar war, and mixed-grav food never got any better.

Jadwiga continued to direct her fleet, and across the void of space, the Melitt ships approached one at a time. Gabriela practiced readiness, ensuring her weapons were operational and engines could mount an escape, though in truth, the computer would either scan for a nearby planet or it would not. Say what one would of war, on the small scale there was not much finesse.

Eventually, one of the Melitt craft penetrated into her line of sight. Comms chatter had long speculated that their engines were based on a modified version of humans’ own gravicrafts, though Gabriela would grudgingly concede that the design was sleeker, perhaps based on some of the Melitts’ relatives’ abilities for in-atmosphere flight. Buzzers, they called them, louder in-atmosphere but every bit as dangerous as her own ship. It was, in fact, too close to shoot at, given the trajectory required to accelerate from rest.

Which is why she was surprised to find Jadwiga hail her. “How fares the battle?”

“What battle?” Gabriela asked. “I spend all my time in a metal box, waiting for coordinates of a world to lap around, to shoot forward into the middle of nowhere. But I haven’t seen any signs of battle.”

She thought she heard Jadwiga laugh. “Well put. You’ve seen the oncoming...ah, hostile gravicraft?”

“The buzzer? I’ve seen it. You know I—”

“—can’t destroy it at this moment, of course. What do you think the Melitts’ purpose was in sending it forward so early?”

“You’re asking me for advice?” Gabriela was unsure if she should feel humbled or terrified for the human cause.

“It’s always good to have a second opinion, don’t you think?”

“Not always,” Gabriela replied. “Sometimes you just have to make up your mind and stick to it.”

“Ah. Well said. Then my other question. You were stationed alongside the archivist, Kalina?”

“Of course,” said Gabriela, and couldn’t help but ask, “Is she all right?” It was a silly question, she knew; she’d be notified if anything resembling casualties happened in the conflict, but all the same…

“For the moment,” Jadwiga said. “We have a window of opportunity to send her deep into the fray. The Melitts have left a workership...temporarily undefended, and this will provide an opportunity to pressure their breeders.”

“I’m sure you know best,” Gabriela demurred.

“I thought I might ask you as her comrade, whether she’s ready to face peril. To say nothing of destroying enemy craft.”

“She’s as tough as any archivist out there,” said Gabriela. “But we’re in a war! I don’t see how a bunch of cultural sloganeering is going to do us any good.”

Jadwiga paused, for long enough that Gabriela tried kicking at her computer screen before she spoke. “Can I trust you with my opinions?”

“Anything you say to me is confidential, certainly.”

“I don’t ask as a Commander, I ask as a fellow human.”

When was the last time Gabriela had just been another human? When, for that matter, had the Commander? It seemed the least she could do. “I suppose.”

“The Melitts’ diagonal rangers use pheromone propaganda to try to turn neutral planets against us. Compared to that, I think some diversity—all our faiths, our stories, science, everything we’re preserving for the colony ship—is the least we can do.”

“So you stole tactics from them.”

“We’ve always been on the defensive in this war. Some imitation is necessary to—apprehend your enemy on even terms.”

“And here I was thinking you were going to justify war crimes.” Again she flinched—what was she doing, talking to Commander Jadwiga like an academy classmate?—but the Commander only laughed.

“You seem too shrewd for me to waste time justifying nonsense,” she said. “If I’m ever tempted to betray my principles, I won’t bother with an explanation.”

“Well, feel free to explain yourself to the Melitts in that case,” said Gabriela. “Bore the remnant of them to death.”

“I suppose,” said Jadwiga. “Thank you for your counsel. I may speak to you again soon.”

And the lingering threat of battle felt more of a reassurance than she’d imagined.

They were somewhat delayed by the exigencies of lightspeed, but soon enough, the computer alerted her that Kalina had indeed been sent to incinerate a workership and loom over the enormous but slow-moving breeder craft. It escaped her reach, and then Jadwiga paged Gabriela again.

“I’d like you to go forward,” she explained. “Protect Kalina while she’s posted in enemy territory.”

“Do you ask all your underlings to sign off on their marching orders?” Gabriela marveled.

“Hmm, only the ones that show initiative.”

“Initiative. Right. If that’s what you call having a craft that can’t fly in a line. If I didn’t know better I’d think you were an upgraded drone that was bitter she couldn’t get her own gravicraft.”

“We all shoulder different responsibilities,” Jadwiga said.

“Of course I’ll do it. Kalina needs someone to watch her back before she starts going on about harmony and sisterhood and that rubbish.”

“What if I said she’d already started?”

“Then she’d just need someone to watch her back all the more, wouldn’t she?”

“You are very amenable.”

“Your tactics are...quite daring,” said Gabriela, and readied herself for another jump.

That time it involved several dizzying loops of a dwarf planet, its dark sun a blur at the edge of her vision. But she landed safely, adjusting her ship to bring her weapons in line with Kalina’s. “Don’t go deafening those Melitts into oblivion without me,” she radioed.

“Thanks, but I don’t think that’s likely,” Kalina sent back. “I believe their audible range doesn’t overlap with ours.”

“No wonder we can’t negotiate.”

Gabriela waited there as a couple workerships encroached into her medium-range field of view. Despite the war having partitioned the starfields into rigid squares, up close the scans made it clear that the Melitts designed their light scout ships with crystal protrusions and tessellating hexagons. Kalina had tried to show her vid footage of bee colonies on Earth, from back when biodiversity was more plentiful, and Gabriela had never found it too absorbing. But she supposed the alien monstrosities would have been fascinated by the small creatures that distantly resembled them from across the galaxy. The workerships hovered, but not too close. All the vastness of space, and they could still find forward motion impassable.

Jadwiga sent word. “I plan on bringing the Command ship forward. To protect you and Kalina both.”

It was early in the engagement to direct the full strength of the human command into the fight, but then again, what good was an asset that was not committed? Kalina was already deep in Melitt space. “I can handle myself just fine, but whatever you think best.”

“Very well,” said Jadwiga. “Perhaps I will see you soon and encounter these magnificent gravitational computers I’ve heard so much about.”

Gabriela tried to rest, anxious to pass the time. At last, the mighty Command ship drifted into her vicinity. Cloaked in darkness, its weapons were mounted on all extremities, and its engines equipped with long-range power to traverse whatever paths the old computers might plot. The pride of the human fleet, on patrol.

“Let’s see the breeders navigate their way out of that one!” Jadwiga crowed.

“Do you have a ship’s gig?” asked Gabriela. “While they ponder, you’re welcome to see the gravicraft for yourself.”

“It would be my pleasure.”

Gabriela quickly shut down the link before her amusement became clear—the Commander? transfixed by _her_ craft?—but prepared the docking bay anyway. The little gig glided across the short diagonal juncture separating the two ships, and soon after, Jadwiga stepped inside.

“It’s an honor to meet you,” Gabriela saluted. “I apologize if this goes against protocol...”

“I’m safer here than I am onboard that ship, no doubt,” said Jadwiga briskly. She was taller in person than the video links made her out to be.

“I’m afraid it’s not as exciting as it looks. The computer is the main attraction.” Gabriela led Jadwiga to the mainframe, which was currently in power-saving mode, waiting for news of a Melitt maneuver.

“Don’t be so dismissive.”

“I can run a simulation, if you’d like!” She began tapping at it.

“Oh there’s no need, I don’t want to overtax our power sources.”

“It’s not that hard,” Gabriela pointed. “Look, the gas giant is no good because orbiting there would send me right where Kalina already is. The rock world, though, I’d have to fly by there a couple extra times to get the boost to my weapon systems to take out that workership...”

“Three-dimensional range of motion,” Jadwiga murmured. “Impressive.”

“It should really be the standard,” Gabriela felt compelled to respond, “we are in space.”

Jadwiga gave a half-smile. “Nothing about this war comes as easy as it looks.”

Gabriela showed her the rest of the ship, which was by-and-large standard-issue, yet the Commander took to it with the fresh eyes of an academy cadet.

“No sign of enemy movements?” Jadwiga asked.

Gabriela pulled up the screen again. “Not yet. I’ll, er, let you get back to the Command ship?”

Jadwiga nodded. “I’m very glad to have met you in person. If all our troops are as...spirited as you, our future bodes well.”

“You’re, ah. Welcome to stay, of course. Until we hear news.”

She turned at the door to the docking bay. “It would be inappropriate to my station for me to presume.”

“Of course it would. You’re more than your station, aren’t you? You’re allowed to be just another person, too.”

“That...seems a luxury I can ill-afford.”

“Come off it,” Gabriela snapped. “You eat mixed-grav food like the rest of us and sleep strapped into bunks ready for combat at a moment’s notice. I don’t think you’re one to talk about luxuries.”

Jadwiga closed her eyes, shuddering, as if she could not bear to take Gabriela’s face in. “That’s as may be...”

Gabriela crossed the deck, tilting her neck up to kiss her. “Do you mind this, Commander?”

Jadwiga hushed her with a finger to the lips, then replied with a kiss of her own. “My name is Jadwiga.”

Gabriela bid her to her quarters. “Then let me lead you.”

“I thought you said these bunks were too uncomfortable to get deep sleep in,” Jadwiga said, but she looked delighted.

“They are,” said Gabriela. “But surely you did not think sleep was what I had in mind?”

Later, much later—what was day or night in space?—Gabriela rose and began rummaging through her supplies, stowed near some EVA spacesuits. “Where d’you think you’re going?” Jadwiga protested.

“Looking for this.” Gabriela held up a deprecated videorecorder. “Something not wired into the military networks.”

“And I thought this was as modern a ship as they come.”

“Retrofitted from an old science craft.” Back when ancient generations had thought exploring the galaxy would be a peaceful mission. “Your gig probably has one too.”

“And you’re photographing what, this bunk, to complain about how intolerable the conditions are?”

“You, if I might. So once you return to your ship, I might have something to admire in my solitude.” At Jadwiga’s blush, Gabriela rushed to add, “You are welcome to do the same, though I fear I may not be particularly attractive.”

“You’re a master of gravity. What could be more attractive?” Jadwiga paced over towards the docking bay, eventually returning with a camera in tow. For a few moments they were able to stand quietly, and capture each other’s bodies not in triumph, but in shared glory.

“It’s funny,” said Gabriela, putting her uniform back on, “had I not known I would have thought you and the colonial governor were— entangled.”

Jadwiga choked back a laugh. “We advise each other frequently. I would give my life for the colony ship without question, but these days, that means little. But love? That is—”

“Do not say a luxury,” Gabriela began.

“Something very fortunate,” said Jadwiga.

They embraced at the door to the docking bay. “We’ll speak again soon,” Jadwiga promised.

“Thank you,” Gabriela said, and couldn’t help but add, “I hope the ship lived up to your expectations.”

“I found its possibilities for movement very rewarding,” Jadwiga smiled, and then slipped into the gig.

Not even the dullness of mixed-grav food could dampen Gabriela’s joy. She waited eagerly for news, found that the Melitts’ breeders had taken evasive action as expected, and was thrilled to hear Jadwiga patch through to her very shortly after. But it was a far cry from the woman who had spoken to her so recently; this was the Commander in all her power.

“Do you need advice?” Gabriela asked.

“No,” said Jadwiga. “I believe I have found a tactic the Melitts will not have foreseen.”

“Excellent!”

“We must press the attack. Continue to assault their breeders, and give no quarter. Do you not agree?”

“I don’t mean to flatter, but your knowledge of the battle is far superior to my own.”

“I fear— I fear I must sacrifice Kalina.”

Did she seek forgiveness Gabriela could not grant? “Jadwiga,” she said quietly, “I adore you for all that you are. Not for what you might dream of being. So long as you are the Commander, do not fear to lead.”

This seemed to strengthen her. “I wish you could hold me.”

“Don’t let the Melitts hear you say that, they’ll plan their strategy around us remaining together.”

“Thank you,” said Jadwiga.

Since when had she become a source of consolation? She, Gabriela, one of the academy’s finest null-grav pilots? With a weary sigh, she switched off the link, and deliberated opening a stream to speak with her old friend. Ultimately, she decided against it. If Kalina had any farewells to say, she could say them herself. Otherwise, there was no point in taking her grief out preemptively.

A while later, she noticed a mass of data pouring into the computer’s files. Not enough to slow it down, but bulkier than most of her downloads. Poking at the metadata, she realized it was an extraneous copy of Karina’s valuable cultural heritage; the gleanings of a lifetime of study. No doubt similar files were being mailed back to the colony ship and everywhere else in between.

Only when the download was complete did she receive the much briefer notification that Kalina had taken off, and then, shortly afterwards, that a buzzer had shot her down. No farewell, except perhaps the kind Kalina would find most fitting.

“You got the download too?” Gabriela found herself asking when Jadwiga paged her again.

“Yes,” said Jadwiga. “I’m trusting the colony ship will make sense of it, I haven’t had much time to begin...”

“I didn’t mean it that way. I’m just—glad something of hers could survive.” Had Kalina herself been religious, held out hope that she might outlive the war in body or soul, or just salvaged the anthems of others? She’d never spoken of it, perhaps fearing Gabriela’s boredom or worse. A dozen conversations that might have been fell silent and died. There was still a future to fight for.

“Surely,” said Jadwiga. “All we can hope is that her life was not spent in vain.”

“You have a plan, now? For what to do next?”

“An inkling. I intend to push forward, attacking the breeders with my tractor beam. It’s a bit close for comfort, but I’ll have you to defend me.”

“That,” said Gabriela, “would be an honor indeed.”

The computer heralded the Commander’s arrival by offhandedly illuminating a ringed world that Gabriela could fly by to avenge Jadwiga, were the Melitts foolhardy enough to harm her. They committed no such folly, their breeders fleeing once more. Through cycles of fitful sleep, Gabriela was updated on the motions of drone and workership scouts.

Until Jadwiga reached out to her yet again. “Did you go to the academy with Cibor?”

“Cibor?” Gabriela echoed. “I know the name, but I think he graduated shortly before I arrived.” She had not had rivals. It had been easy enough to mentor other students but focus intently on her own work, half-knowing they would not be competing with her for the same gravicraft positions. Mostly proud, yet the fraction of her instinctively interested in self-preservation had been jealous of them.

“That would make sense,” said Jadwiga. “He’s in charge of the other gravicraft.”

“Don’t tell me you’re leaving me for him,” Gabriela teased.

Jadwiga nearly smiled. “Small chance.”

“You prefer newer models, eh?”

“I’m sure he can find his way around the modern ships just fine,” she said. “But I think our best chance is if he pushes the attack further. And blows up one of those workerships while we’re at it.”

“Do you mean you would not love me if I had blood on my hands?”

“Gabriela,” Jadwiga said, “it is you who I love, and would love if you were elbow-deep in Melitt entrails, or at peace on a silent moon, or anywhere in between.”

“And I think the same of you. No stratagem will change that.”

Jadwiga sighed. “Even sacrificing Cibor?”

“Even— of course not. You think the fleet can withstand it?”

“It is not the quantity of ships in the fleet that wins wars; it is attack, pressed swiftly and decisively. We can’t lose this chance.”

“I trust you,” Gabriela said. “And you know I would defy you if I did not.”

“That is well,” said Jadwiga. “Be ready to launch.”

“I always am.”

She had not known Cibor well. He doted over his ship, surely, and seemed the type to be dedicated to the Human Cause with all its speechmaking and pageantry, but perhaps that was just judging him at first glance. All the computer recorded of his demise was pinpricks of light, and the destruction of the workership he had shot down.

“Now,” Jadwiga urged, “I would see you avenge him.” 

“I know you,” Gabriela said. “You are wiser than seeking vengeance for vengeance’s sake.”

“Might I seek vengeance for the sake of offense?”

“Giving offense?”

“Offen _sives_ , then.”

“Hmm,” Gabriela said, “I suppose that might be acceptable.”

“I would wish you fortune, but I trust you have no need of it.”

The computer took some time to calculate the optimal route back to the workership. Finally, it settled on several swoops past an icy rock, soaring through the distance behind the human defenses before returning with a clear angle to shoot. Setting up her targeting systems, Gabriela prepared to launch.

Transit was smooth enough, but the incoming approach made her nauseous. Despite the computer’s aim, she still had to give manual clearance for the shot, and something made her fear she would lose her nerve at the last. Of course the Melitts boasted that they were a hivemind, and the loss of a single workership meant little to them, but was it really just a bluff? If not, why were they so virulently opposed to human expansion?

All the same, the first shot hit the engine, disabling the ship’s power system, and she quickly got off another that hit the crystals edge-on. The workership crumbled, and her acceleration decreased as she was able to occupy the space where it had so recently hovered.

None of it would bring Cibor back. But the computer began flashing its urgent message that the Melitt breeder ship was within striking distance. Of course, she could not aim a tractor beam like the other ships with their linear trajectories, but her flybys were no less threatening to the enemy.

With Jadwiga still locking down the deep Melitt space, the breeder ship was forced to flee forwards, and Gabriela caught a glimpse of it on her scanners as it zoomed in. There were fewer crystals, and only cursory weapons systems; instead, interlocking panes formed a nearly spherical hull. Destroy it, the humans whispered, and the Melitts would go extinct in a generation. And still some dreamers hoped to reach a treaty!

The ship was too close to compute a jump orbit to. Indeed, even its frail weaponry seemed to threaten her. Jadwiga must have feared it, because she called Gabriela shortly after. “Retreat as soon as you can. I won’t have you being killed by some useless breeders, nothing can come of that.”

“Yes, ma’am,” she smiled. “Where to?”

“Back by our drones. Keep up the attack, keep them on the run.”

“Just to have them flee back where they came?” The remnants of the civilian population supported the war, more or less by coercion, but they had to believe it was a war they stood a chance of winning. Chase the breeders back and forth without end, and even once-patriotic humans would be quick to sue for peace.

“Our drones have some tricks left, I should hope.”

“We should all hope,” said Gabriela.

The center of the fray was littered with detritus from battles gone by. The computer directed her to swerve several times around a small asteroid, a disorienting path which finally deposited her in more solidly human territory. As Jadwiga had predicted, the breeders had no choice but to turn and fly the other way, and drones and workerships continued their skirmishes.

When Jadwiga connected to her next, the Commander’s eyes bore the marks of haggard sleeplessness; she seemed to have donned her uniform without regard for professional bearings. Surely, she did not mind Gabriela seeing her as a mere human, but it had the look less of treasured intimacy and more of exhausted fear.

“What’s happening?” Gabriela asked. Asking after Jadwiga’s well-being seemed redundant.

“So many answers, there on the verge.” She shook her head. “And too many questions. How much do they value the life of their All-Mother? Will they fight to the death if cornered, or surrender if defeat is inevitable? Do they pore over my stratagems like I grapple with theirs?”

“I can’t answer that. Tell me what I can help you with?”

“You don’t know Bogdan, do you?”

“Another sacrifice?”

Jadwiga smiled grimly. “He was—is—an archivist as well. Stationed near me at first. He would try to provoke me with the most inane philosophizing about, supposing the Melitts were as distinct as we were, would it be just to make war. Supposing we had attacked first. I told him it was silly, that they attacked us and it was foolish to imagine otherwise, but he would always insist on playing at hypotheticals.”

“We all joined this war because we thought it was right. This is the universe we live in.”

“And some of us die in.”

“Do you have these conversations with them, too? The soldiers you send to die?”

“I think it’s easier for them to believe I’m only the Commander. That I know my plan will work. Maybe it helps them believe it’s worth it, in the end.”

“Even if it doesn’t work—” How could Gabriela compare their lives, their love, to the scheme of the conflict unfolding around them? “I’m glad we met. The others have things worth dying for, too. Even out here.”

“Not like us,” said Jadwiga.

“No,” said Gabriela. “Not like us.”

“We’ll talk soon,” Jadwiga said, and Gabriela let her go.

Again, the computer registered Bogdan’s relentless approach, and the swift dispatch of the breeder ship shortly after. But hours blurred into days, and Jadwiga did not hail her. Gabriela tried to summon up a diagram, but found it unenlightening. The large ships of the Melitts outnumbered their own; that was all that Jadwiga’s gambits had made clear.

Finally, in annoyance more than fear, she patched through to the command ship herself. Let the military hierarchs think of it what they would. “I am sure your strategies are very cunning,” she said, “but you cannot mean to bore the Melitts to death with your recalcitrance?”

“No,” Jadwiga said quietly. She was composed, but seemed to stare beyond Gabriela, as if the gravicraft was transparent and the stars beyond would yield some answer.

“Then let me advise you. Or talk back at your strategies, if you find that preferable.”

“Some idea. Perhaps. Attack their breeders again, compel them to respond. Lure their workership away and give our turretcraft freedom of motion. Then deploy a drone to trap the breeders once and for all. I think they will surrender rather than risk destruction, and the colony ship sort out diplomacy.”

“That seems a wise plan.”

“It seems like folly.”

“You don’t think it will work?”

“I’m afraid it will work all too well.”

“Then...” Gabriela thought it would be easier to read Jadwiga’s face than the computer projections, and more familiar too. “You aim to sacrifice yourself.”

“If that were all, I would have already done it.”

“Surely not without saying goodbye?”

“Gabriela,” Jadwiga said, but her voice wavered.

Clarity flashed rather than dawned: an oncoming star rather than a horizon of a peaceful world. “You would have me go.”

“All my heart would not.”

“You could have called,” Gabriela protested, “you could have spoken to me...”

“I could not have.”

“For all you speak of attack, attack, attacks, I did not think you a coward.” The words stung, and Jadwiga stepped back from the screen. “Forgive me,” Gabriela continued. “I would not have your last memories of me be words spoken in anger.”

“Not the last,” Jadwiga said. “There might be some other way, if only I could see it. We could see it.”

“You would start searching as soon as I gave the word, wouldn’t you? To spare me?”

“I have already begun!”

“And I love you for it. But my life means no more than other troops’. You have always considered my advice. So today I must ask you to be the Commander again. Lead us to victory.”

“You are the one who leads,” said Jadwiga, her voice barely a whisper, “where I cannot yet follow.”

“When the war is over, then go and be Jadwiga once more. Mourn in good time; do not rush to be the face of the species. The colony ship will have more than enough to occupy themselves with.”

“It is not right,” Jadwiga said, “for you to comfort me so.” Yet her voice still shook, and Gabriela felt moved to say all she could.

“All the others—Kalina, Cibor, Bogdan, even the drones—they could not be sure their deaths would bring about victory, could they? Only I can truly know the brilliance of your battle-plan play out, in my life’s last act. What better death could I know?”

“Humanity will honor your life always,” Jadwiga saluted, “and so will I.”

Leaving Gabriela free, even then, to decide which meant more. She glanced up at the Commander, returned the salute, then hurriedly closed the connection. Instinct told her Jadwiga would not have the strength to cut it off herself.

The computer eagerly highlighted a watery world she would need to soar past to imperil the breeders, heedless of her own life. No wonder Jadwiga was so overcome with emotion, she thought ruefully. The loss of the computer alone would set human technology back some distance.

Still, peace was its own reward. As the flyby began, Gabriela impulsively turned on a recording stream, sending what images she could of the oncoming workership back to the colony ship. It wouldn’t equal Karina’s archive, and Jadwiga would probably not be pleased by the distraction, but maybe the other humans could learn something. It wouldn’t matter much in peacetime, not the same way, but one could never be sure with Melitts.

The workership usually propelled itself forward, but Gabriela realized that a surge of power to their weapons systems allowed it to turn and pivot, rotating to the side as it approached her. Ingenious construction, really—had they stolen it from the drones? Had the humans copied it from them? Did it matter anymore?

The first shot shut down the power system. _Goodbye, little computer_ , she thought, _thank you for all the jumps._ The next exploded the hull, and with a gulping breath—

—she saw in an instant Jadwiga’s plan, etched across the outline of her mind. Heard the echoes of lectures from her academy days. “The Melitts are a hivemind; they don’t trust individual-bodied species to spread out across the galaxy, which is why they always attack first.” Wondered, in the silence, whether sacrifice would make them understand humans less or more.

Breathed again, and flung herself into the infinite.

**Author's Note:**

> [Polish Immortal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Immortal) on Wikipedia


End file.
